Angel Toala & Luz Maria Marin

Luz Maria Marin holds the head of her husband Angel Toala on the day before he died of stomach cancer at his home in Shushufindi.

Testimonial of Luz Maria Marin, of Shushufindi

My husband, angel Toala, and I came here to the Amazon 23 years ago from the mountains in Santo Domingo. We came because he was told you could earn good money with the oil companies here. We have six children.

Angel worked on the pipeline for Texaco for five years, and that is how we’ve been able to buy this farm. Mostly we grew coffee, plantains, yuca, some cacao.

There’s a Texaco pumping station near our house and the Texaco oil well 200 yards from our house, and downstream is a leak where the crude oil they dumped gathers. We never let the animals drink this water. A lot of times we found dead fish in it. Our coffee plants there turned yellow and died.

We got our drinking water from the rain, and, when it didn’t rain, from the stream. It had a funny taste and sometimes you could see oil floating on top. We based there and washed our clothes there. We knew the water was bad for our health, but what could we do? There wasn’t water anywhere else.

I don’t think the oil company worried if they contaminated the water. We farmers didn’t realize the water was contaminated, and certainly was not in the oil company’s interest to tell us that.

About three years ago, my husband started having stomach pains, slight pains when he ate. He couldn’t eat as much as he used to. Certain foods made him feel bad, and he couldn’t eat meat, or fish. About a year ago he started losing weight.

Then his back began hurting, and his muscles. He felt tired. At the end he couldn’t take the sun. He was so tired; he didn’t have any energy.

In Quito he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. We took him to the Eugenio Espejo Hospital but the doctor said that it was too late, nothing could be done.

The last three months before he died, he couldn’t do anything. He just lay in the hammock.

I Stand with Steven

I Stand with Steven

Pledge:

I support attorney Steven Donziger and Ecuadorian advocates Javier Piaguaje and Hugo Camacho in their efforts to hold Chevron accountable for its devastation of farmer and indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon. I call on Chevron to end its attacks against human rights lawyers, activists, and the communities of Ecuador who continue to demand Chevron meet its legal, moral, and ethical responsibilities and clean up its toxic waste in Ecuador.

During more than two decades of oil drilling in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Chevron admitted to discharging billions of gallons of toxic water into the rainforest, leaving local people suffering from an epidemic of cancer, miscarriages and birth defects. The affected indigenous and farmer communities have fought back with the help of a committed local legal effort, grassroots activism, and the tireless efforts of lawyers from around the world, including New York-based human rights lawyer Steven Donziger.

Chevron spent nine years arguing in United States Federal Court that the case against it should be heard in Ecuador. After being found liable for $19 billion in damages in the very Ecuadorian Court chosen by the company, Chevron responded by filing a retaliatory suit against Steven Donziger, Ecuadorian lawyer and advocate Pablo Fajardo, Goldman Prize winner Luis Yanza, and all 47 of their named clients in the very venue Chevron deemed inappropriate when the case was originally brought.

Chevron’s abusive legal strategy flies in the face of everything that our justice system and indeed our Constitution holds dear. For these reasons I support the fight of Steven Donziger, Javier Piaguaje, and Hugo Camacho and their colleagues to hold Chevron accountable for its contamination in Ecuador and the abuses of our justice system.